Manly Wade Wellman - John the Balladeer SSC

by John the Balladeer (v1. 1)

  "Who are you?" he asked, sort of crooning.

  "My name's John," I said.

  "John what?" Then, without waiting for my answer, "Where did you steal that guitar?"

  "It was given to me," I replied. "I strung it with silver wires myself."

  "Silver," he said, and opened his squint eye by a trifle.

  With my left hand I clamped a chord. With my right thumb I picked a whisper from the silver strings. I began to make a song:

  Mister Onselm,

  They do what you tell 'em—

  "That will do," said Mr. Onselm, not so musically, and I stopped playing. He relaxed. "They do what I tell 'em," he said, half to himself. "Not bad."

  We studied each other a few ticks of tune. Then he turned and tramped out of the yard in among the trees. When he was out of sight the man of the place asked, right friendly, what he could do for me.

  "I'm just walking through," I said. I didn't want to ask right off for some dinner.

  "I heard you name yourself John," he said. "So happens my name's John too, John Bristow."

  "Nice place you've got," I said, looking around. "Cropper or tenant?"

  "I own the house and the land," he told me, and I was surprised; for Mr. Onselm had treated him the way a mean boss treats a cropper.

  "Then that Mr. Onselm was just a visitor," I said.

  "Visitor?" Mr. Bristow snorted. "He visits everybody here around. Lets them know what he wants, and they pass it to him. Thought you knew him, you sang about him so ready."

  "Shucks, I made that up." I touched the silver strings again. "I sing a many a new song that comes to me."

  "I love the old songs better," he said, and smiled, so I sang one:

  I had been in Georgia Not a many more weeks than three, When I fell in love with a pretty fair girl, And she fell in love with me.

  Her lips were red as red could be, Her eyes were brown as brown, Her hair was like the thundercloud Before the rain comes down.

  You should have seen Mr. Bristow's face shine. He said: "By God, you sure enough can sing it and play it."

  "Do my possible best," I said. "But Mr. Onselm don't like it." I thought a moment, then asked: "What way can he get everything he wants in this valley?"

  "Shoo, can't tell you way. Just done it for years, he has."

  "Anybody refuse him?"

  "Once Old Jim Desbro refused him a chicken. Mr. Onselm pointed his finger at Old Jim's mules, they was plowing. Them mules couldn't move ary foot, not till Mr. Onselm had the chicken. Another time, Miss Tilly Farmer hid a cake when she seen him come. He pointed a finger and dumbed her. She never spoke one mumbling word from that day to when she died. Could hear and understand, but when she tried to talk she could just wheeze."

  "He's a hoodoo man," I said, "which means the law can't do anything."

  "Not even if the law worried about anything this far from the county seat." He looked at the meal back against the cabin. "About tune for the Ugly Bird to fetch Mr. Onselm's meal."

  "What's the Ugly Bird?" I asked, but he didn't have to answer.

  It must have hung over us, high and quiet, and now it dropped into the yard like a fish hawk into a pond.

  First out I saw it was dark, heavy-winged, bigger than a buzzard. Then I saw the shiny gray-black of the body, like wet slate, and how it seemed to have feathers only on its wide wings. Then I made out the thin snaky neck, the bulgy head and long stork beak, the eyes set in front of its head—man-fashion in front, not to each side.

  The feet that taloned onto the sack showed pink and smooth with five graspy toes. The wings snapped like a tablecloth in a wind, and it churned away over the trees with the meal sack.

  "That's the Ugly Bird," said Mr. Bristow. I barely heard him. "Mr. Onselm has companioned with it ever since I recollect."

  "I never saw such a bird," I said. "Must be a scarce one. You know what struck me while I watched it?"

  "I do know, John. Its feet look like Mr. Onselm's hands."

  "Might it be," I asked, "that a hoodoo man like Mr. Onselm knows what way to shape himself into a bird?"

  He shook his head. "It's known that when he's at one place, the Ugly Bird's been sighted at another." He tried to change the subject. "Silver strings on your guitar—never heard of any but steel strings."

  "In the olden days," I told him, "silver was used a many times for strings. It gives a more singy sound."

  In my mind I had it the subject wouldn't be changed. I tried a chord on my guitar, and began to sing:

  You all have heard of the Ugly Bird So curious and so queer, That flies its flight by day and night And fills folks' hearts with fear.

  I never come here to hide from fear, And I give you my promised word That I soon expect to twist the neck Of the God damn Ugly Bird.

  When I finished, Mr. Bristow felt in his pocket.

  "I was going to bid you eat with me," he said, "but—here, maybe you better buy something."

  He gave me a quarter and a dime. I about gave them back, but I thanked him and walked away down the same trail Mr. Onselm had gone. Mr. Bristow watched me go, looking shrunk up. My song had scared him, so I kept singing it.

  O Ugly Bird! O Ugly Bird! You snoop and sneak and thieve! This place can't be for you and me, And one of us got to leave.

  Singing, I tried to remember all I'd heard or read or guessed that might help toward my Ugly Bird study.

  Didn't witch people have partner animals? I'd read and heard tell about the animals called familiars—mostly cats or black dogs or the like, but sometimes birds.

  That might be the secret, or a right much of it, for the Ugly Bird wasn't Mr. Onselm's other self. Mr. Bristow had said the two of them were seen different places at one time. Mr. Onselm didn't turn into the Ugly Bird then. They were just close partners. Brothers. With the Ugly Bird's feet like Mr. Onselm's hands.

  I awared of something in the sky, the big black V of a flying creature. It quartered over me, half as high as the highest woolly scrap of cloud. Once or twice it seemed like it would stoop for me, like a hawk for a rabbit, but it didn't. Looking up and letting my feet find the trail, I rounded a bunch of bushes and there, on a rotten log in a clearing, sat Mr. Onsehn.

  His gourd-head sank on his thin neck. His elbows set on his knees, and the soft, pink, long hands hid his face, as if he was miserable. His look made me feel disgusted. I came toward him.

  "You don't feel so brash, do you?" I asked.

  "Go away," he sort of gulped, soft and sick.

  "Why?" I wanted to know. "I like it here." Sitting on the log, I pulled my guitar across me. "I feel like singing, Mr. Onsehn."

  His father got hung for horse stealing, His mother got burned for a witch, And his only friend is the Ugly Bird, The dirty son of—

  Something hit me like a shooting star from overhead.

  It hit my back and shoulder, and knocked me floundering forward on one hand and one knee. It was only the mercy of God I didn't fall on my guitar and smash it. I crawled forward a few scrambles and made to get up, shaky and dizzy.

  The Ugly Bird had flown down and dropped the sack of meal on me. Now it skimmed across the clearing, at the height of the low branches, its eyes glinting at me, and its mouth came open a little. I saw teeth, sharp and mean, like a garpike's teeth. It swooped for me, and the wind of its wings was colder than a winter storm.

  Without stopping to think, I flung up my both hands to box it off from me, and it gave back, flew backward like the biggest, devil-ishest humming bird ever seen in a nightmare. I was too dizzy and scared to wonder why it gave back; I had barely the wit to be thankful.

  "Get out of here," moaned Mr. Onselm, who hadn't stirred.

  I shame to say that I got. I kept my hands up and backed across the clearing and into the trail beyond. Then I half realized where my luck had been. My hands had lifted the guitar toward the Ugly Bird, and somehow it hadn't liked the guitar.

  Just once I looked back. The Ugly Bird was perching on the log and it sort of
nuzzled up to Mr. Onselm, most horrible. They were sure enough close together. I stumbled off away.

  I found a stream, with stones to make steps across. I turned and walked down to where it made a wide pool. There I knelt and washed my face—it looked pallid in the water image—and sat with my back to a tree and hugged my guitar and rested. I shook all over. I must have felt as bad for a while as Mr. Onselm looked like he felt, sitting on the log waiting for his Ugly Bird and—what else?

  Had he been hungry? Sick? Or just evil? I couldn't say which.

  After a while I walked back to the trail and along it again, till I came to what must have been the only store thereabouts.

  It faced one way on a rough road that could carry wagon and car traffic, and the trail joined on and reached the door. The building wasn't big but it was good, made of sawed planks well painted. It rested on big rocks instead of posts, and had a roofed open front like a porch, with a bench where people could sit.

  Opening the door, I went in. You'll find a many such stores in back country places through the land. Counters. Shelves of cans and packages. Smoked meat hung one corner, a glass-front icebox for fresh meat another. One point, sign says u. s. post office, with half a dozen pigeonholes for letters and a couple of cigar boxes for stamps and money-order blanks. The proprietor wasn't in. Only a girl, scared and shaking, and Mr. Onselm, there ahead of me, telling her what he wanted.

  He wanted her.

  "I don't care if Sam Heaver did leave you in charge here," he said with the music in his voice. "He won't stop my taking you with me."

  Then he swung around and fixed his squint eye and wide-open eye on me, like two mismated gun muzzles. "You again," he said.

  He looked hale and hearty. I strayed my hands over the guitar strings, and he twisted up his face as if it colicked him.

  "Winnie," he said to the girl, "wait on him and get him out of here."

  Her eyes were round in her scared face. I never saw as sweet a face as hers, or as scared. Her hair was dark and thick. It was like the thundercloud before the rain comes down. It made her paleness look paler. She was small, and she cowered for fear of Mr. Onselm.

  "Yes, sir?" she said to me.

  "Box of crackers," I decided, pointing to a near shelf. "And a can of those sardine fish."

  She put them on the counter. I dug out the quarter Mr. Bristow had given me, and slapped it down on the counter top between the girl and Mr. Onselm.

  "Get away!" he squeaked, shrill and mean as a bat. He had jumped back, almost halfway across the floor. And for once both of his eyes were big.

  "What's the matter?" I asked him, purely wondering. "This is a good silver quarter." And I picked it up and held it out for him to take and study.

  But he ran out of the store like a rabbit. A rabbit with the dogs after it.

  The girl he'd called Winnie just leaned against the wall as if she was tired. I asked: "Why did he light out like that?"

  She took the quarter. "It doesn't scare me much," she said, and rung it up on the old cash register. "All that scares me is—Mr. Onselm."

  I picked up the crackers and sardines. "He's courting you?"

  She shuddered, though it was warm. "I'd sooner be in a hole with a snake than be courted by Mr. Onselm."

  "Why not just tell him to leave you be?"

  "He'd not listen. He always does what pleases him. Nobody dares stop him."

  "I know, I heard about the mules he stopped and the poor lady he dumbed." I returned to the other subject. "Why did he squinch away from money? I'd reckon he loved money."

  She shook her head. The thundercloud hair stirred. "He never needs any. Takes what he wants without paying."

  "Including you?"

  "Not including me yet. But he'll do that later."

  I laid down my dime I had left. "Let's have a coke drink, you and me."

  She rang up the dime too. There was a sort of dry chuckle at the door, like a stone rattling down the well. I looked quick, and saw two long, dark wings flop away from the door. The Ugly Bird had spied.

  But the girl Winnie smiled over her coke drink. I asked permission to open my fish and crackers on the bench outside. She nodded yes. Out there, I worried open the can with my pocket knife and had my meal. When I finished I put the trash in a garbage barrel and tuned my guitar. Winnie came out and harked while I sang about the girl whose hair was like the thundercloud before the rain comes down, and she blushed till she was pale no more.

  Then we talked about Mr. Onselm and the Ugly Bird, and how they had been seen in two different places at once—

  "But," said Winnie, "who's seen them together?"

  "Shoo, I have," I told her. "Not long ago." And I told how Mr. Onselm sat, all sick and miserable, and the conjer bird crowded up against him.

  She heard all that, with eyes staring off, as if looking for something far away. Finally she said, "John, you say it crowded up to him."

  "It did that thing, as if it studied to get right inside him."

  "Inside him!"

  "That's right."

  "Makes me think of something I heard somebody say about hoodoo folks," she said. "How the hoodoo folks sometimes put a stuff out, mostly in dark rooms. And it's part of them, but it takes the shape and mind of another person—once in a while, the shape and mind of an animal."

  "Shoo," I said again, "now you mention it, I've heard the same thing. It might explain those Louisiana stories about werewolves."

  "Shape and mind of an animal," she repeated herself. "Maybe the shape and mind of a bird. And they call it echo—no, ecto—ecto—"

  "Ectoplasm," I remembered. "That's right. I've even seen pictures they say were taken of such stuff. It seems to live—it'll yell, if you grab it or hit it or stab it."

  "Could maybe—" she began, but a musical voice interrupted.

  "He's been around here long enough," said Mr. Onselm.

  He was back. With him were three men. Mr. Bristow, and a tall, gawky man with splay shoulders and a black-stubbled chin, and a soft, smooth-grizzled man with an old fancy vest over his white shirt.

  Mr. Onselm acted like the leader of a posse. "Sam Heaver," he crooned at the soft, grizzled one, "can tramps loaf at your store?"

  The soft old storekeeper looked dead and gloomy at me. "Better get going, son," he said, as if he'd memorized it.

  I laid my guitar on the bench. "You men ail my stomach," I said, looking at them. "You let this half-born, half-bred hoodoo man sic you on me like hound dogs when I'm hurting nobody and nothing."

  "Better go," he said again.

  I faced Mr. Onselm, and he laughed like a sweetly played horn. "You," he said, "without a dime in your pocket! You can't do anything to anybody."

  Without a dime . . . the Ugly Bird had seen me spend my silver money, the silver money that ailed Mr. Onselm. . . .

  "Take his guitar, Kobe," said Mr. Onselm, and the gawky man, clumsy but quick, grabbed the guitar from the bench and backed away to the door.

  "That takes care of him," Mr. Onselm sort of purred, and he fairly jumped and grabbed Winnie by the wrist. He pulled her along toward the trail, and I heard her whimper.

  "Stop him!" I bawled, but they stood and looked, scared and dumb. Mr. Onselm, still holding Winnie, faced me. He lifted his free hand, with the pink forefinger sticking out like the barrel of a pistol.

  Just the look he gave me made me weary and dizzy. He was going to hoodoo me, like he'd done the mules, like he'd done the woman who tried to hide her cake from him. I turned from him, sick and afraid, and I heard him giggle, thinking he'd won already. In the doorway stood the gawky man called Hobe, with the guitar.

  I made a long jump at him and started to wrestle it away from him.

  "Hang onto it, Hobe," I heard Mr. Onselm sort of choke out, and, from Mr. Bristow:

  "There's the Ugly Bird!"

  Its wings napped like a storm in the air behind me. But I'd torn my guitar from Kobe's hands and turned on my heel.

  A little way off, Mr.
Onselm stood stiff and straight as a stone figure in front of a courthouse. He still held Winnie's wrist. Between them the Ugly Bird came swooping at me, its beak pointing for me like a stabbing bayonet.

  I dug in my toes and smashed the guitar at it. Full-slam I struck its bulgy head above the beak and across the eyes, and I heard the polished wood of my music-maker crash to splinters.

  And down went the Ugly Bird!

  Down it went.

  Quiet it lay.

  Its great big wings stretched out on either side, without a flutter. Its beak was driven into the ground like a nail. It didn't kick or flop or stir once.

  But Mr. Onselm, standing where he stood holding Winnie, screamed out the way you might scream if something had clawed out all your insides with a single tearing grab.

  He didn't move, I don't even know if his mouth came open. Winnie gave a pull with all her strength and tottered back, clear of him. And as if only his hold on her had kept him standing, Mr. Onselm slapped over and down on his face, his arms flung out like the Ugly Bird's wings, his face in the dirt like the Ugly Bird's face.

  Still holding my broken guitar by the neck like a club, I ran to him and stooped. "Get up," I said, and took hold of what hair he had and lifted his face up.

  One look was enough. From the war, I know a dead man when I see one. I let go his hair, and his face went back into the dirt as if it belonged there.

  The others moved at last, tottering a few steps closer. And they didn't act like enemies now, for Mr. Onselm who had made them act so was down and dead.

  Then Kobe gave a scared shout, and we looked that way.

  The Ugly Bird all of a sudden looked rotten mushy, and was soaking into the ground. To me, anyhow, it looked shadowy and misty, and I could see through it. I wanted to move close, then I didn't want to. It was melting away like snow on top of a stove; only no wetness left behind.

  It was gone, while we watched and wondered and felt bad all over.

  Mr. Bristow knelt and turned Mr. Onselm over. On the dead face ran sick lines across, thin and purple, as though he'd been struck down by a blow of a toaster or a gridiron.